The Date

I’m going on a long-awaited date with my husband (long-awaited not because we never go but because it’s long-awaited even if the last one was yesterday.) But I was warned at the hospital that until I get my gallbladder surgery, eating out is out. Everything served everywhere is high-fat (or not low-fat enough). A local restaurant everybody loves offers a weekend special on “paella with 5 different kinds of sausages from all over the world.” It’s like they are mocking me on purpose.

Of course, Japanese restaurants are always good but we can only go out at 3 pm, and they are closed at that time.

So I started browsing menus of restaurants and discovered that there is a place that I can go without ending up at the emergency room. It’s an Asian restaurant that serves soups and things like cucumber salad or steamed salmon on a pillow of butternut squash.

The date is to celebrate the filing of the taxes, which we will do for the last time as non-citizens today. Not that it changes anything for the tax-filing process, but becoming citizens will end our “taxation without representation” situation. We will finally be able to vote in exchange for our taxes. Hopefully, there’s somebody to vote for.

I’ve been paying taxes in this country for exactly 15 years. 🙂 And so has N. I mean, I’m not complaining because obviously we use the roads, the water, and rely on all sorts of governmental organizations. I’m not an anti-tax freak, by any measure. But it is funny that only now will we maybe get to vote. 🙂